


The Middle of it All

by Slantedlight (BySlantedlight)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:12:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BySlantedlight/pseuds/Slantedlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-<i>Discovered in a Graveyard</i>  - the lads are back to work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Middle of it All

“Start there, then,” Bodie agreed, gazing at Doyle’s finger on the map. It seemed brightly pink in contrast with the page, and curved and full of life against the black and flimsy off-white of the A to Z. He forced himself to focus instead on the little square that was marked _Sch_. “But I still don’t see it – it’s too big a risk.”

“Right – but what if he doesn’t see it that way?” Doyle’s voice was as grey and grim as the London rain outside. “Don’t forget it was his own kid who ratted him out two years ago.”

“Yeah, but – revenge on a ten year old? Is that what you’d do, straight out of the Scrubs and on the run?”

Doyle shot him a contemptuous look. “No, but then I’m not on the brink of insanity like our Johnny, am I?”

“Oh, I dunno…” He thought back - again, again - to Cowley’s fretful whisper at the hospital as they stood watching Doyle breathe shallowly in and out on the ventilator, only because of the ventilator. _You were on the brink enough that you wanted to die_ … But he didn’t say it, of course he didn’t say it. “Mad enough to come back to work two weeks before you had to.”

Silence, this time, but for the chuntering of the computers. How long did it take for Cowley to sign a few papers and send them back anyway? The door swung open as he thought it, Clarissa with her tight jeans, fresh white blouse, and Doyle’s new pass.

“Try not to bleed on it this time,” she said, but her eyes belied the harsh words, and she was smiling as she held it out.

“Oh I won’t, it’s not worth the red tape.” Doyle practically snatched it from her hand as he spoke and was halfway across the room to the door, leaving Bodie to roll his eyes in apology and chase after him.

The corridors were quiet at this time of night; the nine to five staff home and tucking into their sausage and mash, agents away on the streets somewhere, undercover or on surveillance or generally lurking out of the rain in pubs and clubs and cars. Bodie watched as Doyle strode straight through the side door and into the relentless wet without pausing, Maynard’s file held inside his jacket his only concession to the weather. No sign of madness there, oh no…

Just let Maynard be anywhere but holed up at his son’s school, waiting for morning to come in a stream of children and gunfire.

Lifting his own jacket above his head, he braved the downpour and ran across the carpark to the silver Capri, keys clutched ready. The rain foiled him though, turning the metal slick and slippery so that he fumbled and dropped them, ended up fishing in a puddle, wetter and grittier than if he’d simply paused to take them from his pocket by the door.

It worried him even more that Doyle didn’t say anything when he finally leaned over to unlock the passenger side, just dropped into his seat and immediately opened the file again, staring at the page torn from the Scrubs’ A to Z. 

“He might not be there,” Bodie said again, uselessly. He could see it, could hear it - Doyle was ready for another tragedy, another Billy Turner or even worse, a Mickey Hamilton – some poor bastard who couldn’t distinguish reality from the chip on his shoulder. His first day back, the first op they were given, and it was some bloke all ready to topple Doyle with nothing more than bitterness and stupidity. ... _he’s an idealist_ … He waved a hand at the file, “That could be a coincidence, you know.”

“What, he ripped a random page from the book and it just happens to show the kid’s new school and no other connection to Maynard at all? Cassie won’t let him near the kid, you know – the school’s his only way in.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Look – he doesn’t have anywhere else to go – and he’s not exactly the full ten shillings. They don’t love him inside either, not after he grassed on McCloud’s mob.”

“What a tangled web we weave....” 

“He’ll be there – I can _feel_ it.”

Bodie pursed his lips, said nothing, drove on. The evening streets whipped past them, orange-lit and all but empty. Even the pubs would be quiet tonight, the dry warmth of _George and Mildred_ or _Tomorrow’s World_ a much better bet when it was tipping it down like this. 

The school, when it appeared, was an ancient red brick building, all tall windows and gables that spired up and into the clouded night. It was surrounded by a wide asphalt playground, a low brick wall, and a tall wrought iron fence. The front gate was closed and padlocked, but it was also in the shadow of another building, and the streetlight that should have glowed light upon it wasn’t working. Doyle nudged him, nodded up at it as they drove past.

“See?”

“So the light’s broken, so what?” Bodie kept his eyes on the road, let his peripheral vision take in what Doyle wanted him to see. Maybe Maynard wouldn’t be there, maybe they’d go in together and this time - _this time_ \- he’d be able to keep Doyle safe.

“So the other lights are all working.”

“You know what Cowley’d say…”

“Yeah – there’s no such thing as a coincidence!” Doyle took his gun from its holster, checked the clip he’d already checked half a dozen times since they gave him back his Browning at the Armoury, put it away again.

“It’s all circumstantial. You forgotten your Moriarty already? Tut-tut, Doyle…”

“ _Listen to your intuition_ ,” Doyle retorted, as if it was a quotation. Maybe it was.

“You’re usually the one telling _me_ to slow down!”

“There’s not usually a kid’s life at stake!”

Bodie took a deep breath, pulled the Capri into the first space he came to, crammed between a 2CV and a Lada. “And it’s not at stake until tomorrow morning, so for Christ's sake cool it! Look – you’ve gotta stay cool, or we’ll lose him whether he’s here or not!”

Doyle blinked at that, and glanced sideways at him, before reaching into the glove box for the torches and tossing one for Bodie to catch. “Stay cool, eh? Sounds like good advice.”

“Well take it, will you?” Doyle was playing with him, wasn’t taking him seriously. He resisted an urge to slam the car door, just in case Maynard was lurking the streets rather than holed up in the school or half the country away, and led the way back along two roads to the school itself, settled into the shadows beside a garage on the corner. Doyle slid in beside him, crowded against him and peered over his shoulder to watch, a press of warmth against his back.

Time passed, the rain fell, and Bodie watched the school and felt Doyle’s breath rise and fall in his chest. It was cold, and it was peaceful, and there was nothing happening. Thank fuck for that. They’d go in, find crayons and piles of scruffy drawings, and…

Light flashed through a chink in a curtained ground floor room, and Doyle’s hand found his in warning, rested against his fingers whilst they both stood and watched the window. He could practically hear Doyle’s heart speeding up, could feel the fine tremor of adrenaline running through him. 

_First op in four months_ …

“Call for back up,” he suggested, was rewarded with a scornful look from Doyle.

“We don’t know it’s him – could be kids messing around!”

“You were the one who said…”

“Look, if you’ve got cold feet about this you can wait here whilst I…”

“Shut up, Ray.”

Another look. “Right then, let’s go find Maynard…”

They waited until everything looked still again, then crossed the road at a padded run, and clambered quickly over the front gate. The shadows that had worked for Maynard would work for them too, no matter what had happened to the light. They paused, waited again to make sure they’d not been spotted, gradually made their way to one of the side doors. Doyle took out his lock pick, had it open in seconds.

_Too fast_ Bodie thought, not daring to say it yet again, _it was all going too fast, and Doyle only just back on active duty_...

A corridor stretched darkly in front of them, lined with mostly empty coathooks, the occasional cupboard and what seemed like a hundred deadly doors. Halfway down a fishtank glowed greenly alive, light glinting at them as its occupants swam serenely up and down. They should have come in at either end of the building - standard procedure, that - but he was strangely loathe to leave Doyle, and Doyle it seemed, had forgotten his rulebook too. Of course it was in the small print that CI5 ignored their own rules when necessary, but...

Doyle nudged him, tipped his head to the right hand side of the corridor, and set off on his own, sidling down the left hand wall, gun drawn, as if he'd been doing it every day for the past six months instead of... Bodie pulled out his own shooter and followed obediently, staying a few paces behind, watching Doyle and the dark surroundings, both. The light had come from the front of the building, one of the rooms on his side, but Maynard, if it was him, could be anywhere by now. If he had any sense he'd have found a place to hide, somewhere warm and cosy for the night, and he'd be sleeping the sleep of the... No. If he had any sense he'd be miles away by now, and they'd end up frightening some teenage kid getting high on felt tips.

Ahead of him, Doyle stopped, held up a hand, and stilled. There was something there...

They were closer to the fishtank now, with its rhythmic _bubble bubble bubble_ , and just audible above it was... He frowned, listening, trying to place the tinny little voice...

Mike Read. _Radio bloody One_ coming from the doorway after the fishtank. His side. He glanced across at Doyle, rolled his eyes. Maybe it was some teenager after all.

Doyle half-grinned back at him, shark-like, and slid into the deeper shadows of a set of tall lockers, then around them, past an open doorway on his own side of the corridor and finally across to the other side of Maynard's room.

Because it was Maynard, Bodie knew it as well as Doyle apparently did. 

Right, time to stop pissing about and put an end to this once and for all, no shots fired. He peered around the doorway into what looked, in the orange light that leaked around the tall curtains at the opposite side of the room, like the school's assembly hall. Childhood flooded back to him, sitting cross-legged in front of curtains just like those, looking up at the headmaster, standing to sing hymns, catching his mate's eye and dissolving into giggles, and on one mortifying occasion being held painfully in place on the stage by the headmaster's grip on his ear. He'd had to apologise for something, couldn't remember what... He'd tell Doyle when this was over, make him laugh. 

If he could make him stay.

Nothing moved inside the hall except the drumbeat and strumming guitar of the transistor radio somewhere in the far corner at the end of the stage, where chairs and tables were stacked high beside the wall. But there was something not right, something...

They dived for cover inside the room together, something - some _one_ \- moving behind them in the doorway opposite, someone taking aim, and...

Half a dozen shots sent them hurtling for the cover of a piano surrounded by low benches, sliding and rolling across the dusty floor until the wall was at their back and they could look out to see who had followed them in.

Shapes rose in the dark, unfamiliar and still, but he'd swear there were three people breathing air in the room, and sure enough, after a moment he could see that one of the shadows swayed slightly - the edge of a man trying not to move, a man whose nerves would get the better of him sooner rather than later.

“Give it up, Johnny,” Doyle called across the darkness, “You won’t get further than this! Let’s talk about…”

The shadow moved more violently, an arm raised, and Doyle's gun erupted beside him, sent Maynard scrambling for shelter further away from the door at the other side of the stage, so that they had him more firmly cornered. Bodie took advantage of the momentary chaos to shove Doyle into the taller cover of the tables and chairs, where a narrow space ran along the wall from one side of the stacks to the other. They still weren't high enough to stand behind, so they crouched down together, watching the room through the gaps.

Maynard fired again, a random shot in the dark that hit the wall well above their heads, and four feet wide of them – trying to draw their own bullets perhaps, to give him a target, but it worked both ways. Bodie estimated angles and trajectory without conscious thought, pinpointed him behind the horse vault angled in the corner by the stage. 

Doyle shifted beside him, leaned closer to whisper. “He’s not going to see reason – we could be here all night. I’ll…”

“We could wait him out – he’ll run out of bullets before we do.”

Doyle pulled away slightly, and Bodie felt the weight of his gaze. “You worried I can’t hack it?”

He sent his own glare back, then looked away, watching Maynard’s corner. “If I was I would have mentioned it before now.” And he wasn’t – Doyle knew his job, always had, always would. It wasn’t that at all. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Then…?”

Now or never, one last try… He reached for Doyle’s arm, fingers closing around still-sodden tweed, and held tight. “Look, _slow down_ … There are easier ways to get out than with a bullet, you know.”

For a moment Doyle froze, and then he looked slowly down at Bodie’s hand, and up to meet his gaze. Bodie didn’t care that he must look frightened, that perhaps he looked terrified - _Scared? All the time_ … - he held on and he looked all the way through the shadows into Doyle’s eyes.

And then a rake of bullets hit the floor in front of their stacked chairs, so that they both cringed away from it, leaned heavily against the wall behind them, shoulders and thighs and knees touching, Bodie’s hand still tightly around Doyle’s wrist, breathing the same air and cordite and the hundred-children smell of the school. 

Maynard had to be running short of bullets, there was no way he’d had time to stock up after his escape. Doyle was right, they had to take him now before he realised it himself and scarpered for good.

Doyle crouched forward and peered warily between the chairs, and he must have had the same thought, because when he moved to press back against the wall – against Bodie, and still in Bodie’s grip – he caught his eye again. “Now or never, sunshine,” he said. And he laid an arm over Bodie’s legs for balance, and he leaned in towards him, and he kissed him, quickly and gently, just beside Bodie’s mouth. “You know, it wasn’t the bullets I came back for,” he said, with a wry twist of his lips.

Bodie felt himself, in the threat and the danger and the madness of it all, begin to smile, even as he heard Doyle take a breath, even as he watched him throw himself across the open space of the hall, shoulder first, rolling across the floor and coming up, gun in hand to fire. Bodie watched, and he smiled, and he took his own breath and he stood up ready to pull his own trigger, but it wasn’t needed. It was going to be alright. Tonight they’d stopped Maynard, and tomorrow they’d be back at work, and despite bedlam and bullets and everything barmy, it was going to be alright in the end.

_February 2011_


End file.
